This was originally written in August of 2000. I had been thinking about the scene where Jareth gives Hoggle the peach and how it might be interpreted as jealousy. This led to a what if...
The front door slammed, followed by the clatter of various items hitting the floor next to it.
"Yer late," a female voice called from the kitchen. "How many did ya get today?"
"Cor. You won't believe what happened to me this morning," Hoggle grumbled as he entered the kitchen.
"What?" his wife asked as she scooped his lunch out of a pot onto his plate, then set it on the table.
"What's this?" he asked looking at the unappetizing mush on his plate.
"Lunch. Told ya, yer late. That's what's left of it. Why're ya late?"
"Oh," Hoggle remembered his previous topic. "That's what happened to me. His Royal Tightness stopped by while I was spraying."
"Ya shouldn't call 'im that," Hegwid told her husband. "What if he hears ya?"
"Bah! I don't care what he hears. What's he goin' to do? Send me to the Bog of Eternal Stench?" This was no threat for them, living near it and the junkyard as they did. There were few days when the wind didn't blow from one direction or the other. Luckily, most days it came from the junkyard.
"Oh, he'll come up with somethin', don't worry."
Hoggle grunted.
"What'd he want?"
"Aw, not much. He gave me this." Hoggle reached into his pocket and pulled out a long necklace strung with violently orange and magenta plastic beads. "Said he thought I'd like it."
"That thing? Where'd he get that idea?" Hegwid scrunched her nose in distaste at the tacky piece of jewelry.
"Don't know." Hoggle shrugged as held it up and admired it. "Kind of grows on ya. Think I'll keep it."
"I think y'should take it back to the junkyard where it came from. It's trash."
"Shows what you know. It's plastic," Hoggle informed her reverently. "Don't get much of that 'round here, y'know."
Hegwid grunted at him and turned to scrub the pot in the sink.
.….
"I feel better already. That went quite well," the Goblin King informed the throne room in general as he admired his new waistcoat in a mirror.
"What shall I do next?" he continued, essentially speaking to himself, despite the riot of goblins populating the room. "So many choices."
.….
"Ah, Hoggle, there you are!" Jareth exclaimed a few weeks later as Hoggle blustered into the throne room.
"Yeah. What'd you want me for?" Hoggle asked, impatient to get back to his own business.
"I have another present for you." He held up a gold chain and twisted it so that light sparkled off its dangling length. "It came from the last challenger. Not in the same category as the plastic, I'm afraid, but she thought it valuable enough to trade it for the child."
Hoggle eyed the chain dubiously. Something smelled fishy here and he hadn't stepped in the Bog in quite a while.
"What do I have to do for it?"
"Nothing. I'm giving it to you... because I want to." He placed the chain in Hoggle's hand and closed the dwarf's fingers around it. "There. It's yours."
"Thanks," Hoggle muttered. He was still leery of the gift and motivations behind it, but he did not give the chain back instead merely opening his hand to look at the pile of links his palm and pausing to look up at the Goblin King from under his bushy eyebrows as he turned to go.
"You're very welcome," Jareth told him and smiled encouragingly, waving him off to leave like a good little boy.
.….
Over the next few months, Hoggle received several more of these gifts, until he had amassed quite a collection, which he took to carrying with him in a pouch he hung from his belt. Gradually, Hegwid began to notice changes in him. He had taken to stopping at the junkyard and began bringing home discards with him. First he brought several pairs of large furry cubes with spots on their sides, that reminded her of the bones the goblins used for their gambling games. But he was proudest of a large bright pink birdlike sculpture on a stick that he planted in the front garden despite her protests. It was plastic.
He even brought her a few items in an attempt to placate her: a pair of turquoise shoes – again plastic – much too big and high for her to walk in and a long string covered in yellow feathers. He told her that the junkyard nomads said you wore the feathers like a shawl or a scarf. This item she almost enjoyed, but, being four times as long as she was tall, it required that she wrap it around herself several times, which made her sneeze. She sneezed not just once, but in an extended fit that lasted a good five minutes.
Once Hegwid had recovered, Hoggle suggested that she drape it over a window instead, but she had taken an intense dislike to the thing and wanted it out of her house. She demanded that he take it, the shoes, the cubes, and the bird thing on a stick back where he found them. He surrendered the shoes, cubes, and feathers, but drew the line at his pink plastic bird-on-a-stick.
Then he began to come home in a melancholy mood. When Hegwid questioned him about his mood change from his usual prickly self, he explained that he had been thinking about the fairies he sprayed every day.
"What if they have families?" he asked her with concern. "Every mornin' they go out doin' whatever it is fairies do, just makin' a livin', and then they run into me and I sprays 'em. Their little children never sees 'em again."
"Don't be ridiculous," she told him. "Fairies don't do anythin' but bite. An' they don't have families. They just hatch out of their cocoons."
Sometimes he also expressed a longing for a friend.
"And what's wrong with me?" demanded Hegwid.
"I want someone to go out drinkin' with, y'know. He could spray fairies, too. Then we could have competitions, friendly-like, see?"
Hegwid snorted and wondered where his mind was going. Friends to spray fairies with! He took that job because he couldn't stand people chattering at him all day, he had said.
Then he developed a fear of the Goblin King that he had never had before. He became paranoid that His Royal Highness (Tightness no longer) was watching him constantly.
But the last straw, as far as Hegwid was concerned, was when he came home for lunch one day with a half dead fairy he had sprayed and now expected her to revive. He was muttering incoherently about wishes and a girl named Sarah.
When he wandered off after barely touching his lichen and mushroom stew for lunch, Hegwid decided to find out exactly what was going on. She made her way out of the Labyrinth to the wild forest outside.
This forest was kin to the one isolated within the Labyrinth, the same yet different. There were no Fireys in it – they were part of the wildness of the Labyrinth, not the forest – but there were other wild things to watch for.
She found her way through the forest to a cave she had heard about. The dark thing that lived in it would be able to tell her what she wanted to know. It was said that the creature knew everything. She reached the black mouth of the cave and imagined she felt a cold draft flowing across the ground from the mouth of the cave. A shiver ran through her sturdy little body. She smoothed her apron and squared her shoulders and marched toward the cave.
"What do you wish to know?" a hollow voice asked from the darkness that fell around her immediately as she passed the threshold.
Hegwid cleared her throat and answered, "It's about my husband, Hoggle."
"Yes, I know him."
"Ya do? Well, he's changed. He's not the Hoggle he used ta be. He brings home all sorts of trash. He's goin' soft, losin' his backbone. I wants to know why and how to get my old Hoggle back."
"The Goblin King," the voice piped from behind her.
"What about 'im?" Hegwid asked, spinning around in the utter blackness.
"The Goblin King is changing Hoggle." Now the thin voice was right by her ear. "Anything he doesn't want he gives to Hoggle. All the traits and characteristics he doesn't want, doesn't want to admit to, doesn't think he needs. Compassion. Affection. Fear. Poor taste. Loyalty. Friendship."
"How do I fix it?"
"You don't," came the faint reply from a distance. "The Goblin King is the only one who can."
"How do I get 'im to do it?
"Asssk him," it hissed in her face. Suddenly the creature was gone and the light returned to the cave.
"Ask 'im," Hegwid pondered as she walked out of the forest. "I have ta get 'im ta take 'em back. But he doesn't want 'em, it said." Hegwid sighed. Maybe she'd think of something in the morning, meanwhile she hoped Hoggle would be no worse when she got home.
It was dark by the time she made it back home and Hoggle was not there.
Hegwid woke early the next morning and Hoggle still had not come home. Now she really began to worry. This was the first time he had never come home. She decided it was time to take action and see what she could get Jareth to do about it.
As she left through the front door she had thoughts about leaving it unlocked so that the junk nomads might come in and steal some of the things Hoggle had brought home with him, but then she thought better of it. They might take her things instead, better to be safe. She locked the door and set out for the goblin city.
The outer gates were unguarded when she arrived, unusual, but not surprising, considering the average goblin guard. She pulled the gate open and entered the courtyard between the inner and outer gates. The inner gate customarily stood wide open, so it standing ajar now would not have concerned her except for the large robot standing dead in front of it.
"Someone killed Humongous? Funny 'Is Majesty would leave it there like that," Hegwid muttered as she sidled around it.
Entering the city, she could hear noise in the distance. It sounded like a fight. "Someone must 'a stolen the beer tap again," Hegwid thought disparagingly and kept walking toward the castle.
Suddenly the riot grew louder and moved in her direction. Around a corner up ahead raced a dog with a rider on its back, goblin guards following close behind. Hegwid ducked into a nearby doorway. The door was unlocked and she slipped inside the deserted house.
Peeking out through the sack curtains at the window, she could see that the horde had gathered around a doorway directly opposite her. She could not see the owner of a shrill voice proposing terms for surrender. A loud bellow, carrying from a distance, drowned out the high-pitched tones.
Hegwid wondered what the noise was but kept an eye on the group outside waiting for them to wander off so she could get on with her business. The bellowing continued and suddenly the guards began to scatter down the street yelling excitedly as if running from something. She risked opening the door and stepping into the street to see what was coming.
Boulders were rolling down the street and she would swear some of them were aiming directly for her personally. Hegwid dove back into the doorway and slammed it shut behind her. Rocks thudded into the door behind her, moving it in its frame. She looked frantically around the room for something to put in front of the door, grabbed a chair, and wedged it under the door handle.
Then a small rock popped in through the window. She dragged a tall cabinet in front of it to block it, but meanwhile the chair at the door gave way and stones and boulders came rolling into the room. She retreated to the next room, but they followed her, crunching over the shards of stoneware that had fallen from the cabinet.
"Since when do rocks chase ya?" Hegwid asked as she ran down the stairs to the cellar. They followed her and trapped her in a corner, rolling at her threateningly any time she moved. They kept her there for what felt like hours before they finally died or fell asleep. She cautiously took a step forward and then another, weaving her way through the crowd toward the stairs and trying to avoid touching them in case that might wake them up again.
She reached the foot of the stairs, looked up, and realized that she would have to clear the rocks from them by hand. She just rolled them off the edge to join the others on the floor, but it still took her some time to reach the front door and the street.
The streets were littered with boulders, but otherwise completely empty and silent as she walked to the castle. She climbed the castle steps and entered the deserted halls through the large front doors.
She followed her ears through the castle to find the King ranting in his throne room.
"After all I offered her! I would have been her slave! All she had to do was to surrender to me. Instead she rejected me. Me! Even that little scab, Hoghead, with all those repulsive traits, received more than that. He will pay for this. He still has a Princedom to rule that I promised him," Jareth said with a cruel smile.
"Picked a perfect time to talk to 'im, now didn't ya, Hegwid? No help for it now," Hegwid thought, then spoke up, "Yer Majesty?"
"What!" Jareth demanded whirling around to the source of the voice. "What are you doing here?"
"I... I came ta talk ta ya, ta ask ya ta do somethin' fer my husband."
"And who might that be?" he asked sourly.
"H... Hoggle."
Jareth laughed, but not in a way that made Hegwid feel any better. "Why should I do anything for him?"
"I wants ya ta do somethin' fer him, because yer the only one who can." A little flattery never hurt.
"He betrayed me every step of the way. Everything I told him to do he disobeyed. He aided the enemy!" he thundered.
"What did he do?" Hegwid asked meekly.
"He helped the enemy escape! Helped her find her way through the Labyrinth, Destroyed my gatekeeper. And worst of all, he became her friend." He spat the last word out with distaste.
"Ya have no one ta blame but yerself for that," Hegwid told him righteously.
"You dare!"
"Hoggle would never 'a made friends with her if ya hadn't a been givin' 'im things. Yeah, I know what ya been doin'. The thing in the cave in the wild woods told me and ya know it's never wrong." Hegwid boldly stepped toward the Goblin King immobilized by his shock at her words.
"Hoggle never wanted friends 'til ya started tinkerin' with things. He never cared fer other people or creatures. Then all the sudden, he gets 'imself a conscience fer the fairies an' a cravin' fer a drinkin' buddy. So ya've no one but yerself ta thank if he made friends with the enemy and wouldn't do what ya said."
Jareth stared at her for a moment, then said, "Be that as it may – the point has yet to be proven, mind you – it still does not tell me why I should do anything for him."
"Becausa what I want ya ta do. I want ya ta take these things back off him. Take back the friendliness an' the carin', the loyalty an' the affection. And mosta all take back this damned attraction ta plastic and junk. I'm tireda him bringing it home ta fill up my house. Then he won't be able ta betray ya again."
"Oh, he won't? Just like that?"
"No, he won't. He hasn't before, has he? 'Sides he was only doin' what ya wanted 'im ta do."
"Oh, and I suppose I wanted to be defeated?"
"Maybe, maybe not. But ya must a wanted her ta escape, otherwise the things ya gave Hoggle wouldn'ta made 'im do what he did ta help her. It was yer character that guided 'im, so ya wanted her ta get as far as she did and ta make friends. And somethin' ya still have still wants her to like ya, else ya wouldn't be so upset about it now. She liked Hoggle with yer character flaws; she'd like ya with 'em, too. She might even decide ta stay."
"All of those repulsive faults I gave him, those are what she liked? But they made me weak."
"Yep. They made you more human, more like her."
The Goblin King debated the merits of what the dwarf woman proposed and said, "All right, I will take them all back from him. Except for the bad taste and penchant for plastic. He may keep those."
"No. It's all or nothin'. Ya have ta take that, too. I ain't puttin' up with it anymore."
"I refuse to submit to the demands of a subject who lives on the borders of the Bog of Eternal Stench. I will not take that back."
"Then give it to the goblins."
"And have them bring it back here? I think not!"
"Then what about the junkyard nomads? They'll never even notice it if you spread it out real thin among 'em. They might even appreciate it."
Jareth considered. "That may do. Now get out before I change my mind."
Hegwid hurried out before the Goblin King changed his mind or made her pay for the favor.
When Hoggle finally came home several days later, Hegwid did not ask any questions, but waited for the dwarf to tell her what had happened to him and where he had been. It was hard, but she never asked him and he never told her.
Maybe he didn't know any more than she did, didn't remember what had happened in those few days he was missing, she thought. Or maybe he did remember and wanted to keep the memory for himself. But she was grateful anyway when he silently collected everything that he had brought home since it all began and took it out of the house. Everything except the small pouch containing the trinkets Jareth had given him – his jewels as he had come to call them. Hoggle kept them for himself, too, and though Jareth never asked for them back, Hoggle returned to his old self.
Labyrinth and its characters and contents belong to The Jim Henson Company.